San Jose police staffing levels have become a key dispute in Silicon Valley’s hottest and most unusual election.
In a recent campaign TV ad , Congressional District 16 candidate and former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo boasts of adding 200 police officers while representing the city. But the city’s police union and state Assemblymember Ash Kalra, one of Liccardo’s former City Council colleagues, say it’s the opposite — and that Liccardo is to blame for hundreds of officers leaving the city because of slashed pensions.
“After seeing Sam’s campaign ad we are seriously concerned with any potential cognitive decline he may be experiencing because he clearly has forgotten he was on the San Jose City Council and voted in 2011 to fire 66 police officers and 49 firefighters,” Tom Saggau, spokesperson for the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, told San José Spotlight. “His campaign ad shows him in bed, and that makes sense since he must have been dreaming about increasing police staffing. What he actually did was break the SJPD.”